Trasisblog

Aurora Magliozzi is a PhD student at the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies at the University of Naples L’Orientale. She is also an associate researcher at the Institute for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Societies (ISNO) at the University of Bern. Her research focuses on Arabic erotic literature in the classical and post-classical periods. This is the first guest post on the TraSIS blog. We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are…

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Dr Omar Anchassi, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern on the SSC-funded Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies (TraSIS) project.We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are linked here. Content warning: this blog post discusses issues of a highly sensitive nature, including the suffering of children (this- and otherworldly). Reader discretion is advised. This month’s blog post departs from previous contributions by exploring a series of closely interrelated legal and theological questions in the longue durée, rather…

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Laura Rowitz is a PhD candidate at the University of Bern, where she conducts her research in the TraSIS team.We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are linked here. Please note that this source of the month is not related to slavery in the sense of the legal ownership of persons, as is commonly understood. We are, nevertheless, convinced that the perspective adopted in this post allows us to reflect on dependencies in the contemporary world that are not altogether unrelated. In 2020, a new Standard Unified Contract for…

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Laura Emunds is a PhD candidate at the University of Bern, where she conducts her research in the TraSIS team.We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are linked here. Content note: the source discussed in this month’s blogpost originates from the context of the most recent genocide of the Yezidi people and speaks about the sale of a woman enslaved by the so-called Islamic State. This post therefore contains material of a sensitive nature, and reader discretion is…

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Serena Tolino is Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and co-director of the Institute for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Societies at the University of Bern, where she also leads the project TraSIS.We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are linked here. Introduction The subject of this month’s blog post is not a “typical” source for our project, as it is not properly legal. It is a paper presented by an Italian medical doctor on…

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Dr Omar Anchassi, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern on the SSC-funded Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies (TraSIS) project.We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are linked here. Introduction The text translated below, edited by the prolific Abdulrahman al-Salimi, is excerpted from an epistle authored by the Ibāḍī qāḍī Abū ʿAlī Mūsā b. ʿAlī (d. 237/851) on behalf of the Omani Imam al-Muhannā b. Jayfar (r. 226/841-237/851) addressed to Muʿādh b. Ḥarb (d.?).[1] According to al-Salimi, the text…

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For centuries, slavery in various forms was an integral part of Islamicate societies. Different manifestations of unfreedom are rooted in different legal concepts and have produced varying social realities for the individuals concerned. For the purposes of this project, slavery is an analytical category that includes various forms of dependency, even if the connections between them are not explicitly reflected in their Arabic terms.  Content and aim of the research project Muslim jurists have conceptualised freedom and unfreedom in a range of…

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